


there's a crack in everything (that's how the light gets in)

by ShaneVansen



Category: Primeval: New World
Genre: Drama, Episode Tag, F/M, Friendship, Romance, post-ep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-11
Updated: 2013-07-11
Packaged: 2017-12-18 10:14:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/878622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShaneVansen/pseuds/ShaneVansen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's possible she's over-estimating her own role in the universe, but, god, does it ever feel like the weight of the world is resting on her shoulders right now. (post-<i>The Sound of Thunder, part 2</i>; spoilers for the entire season)</p>
            </blockquote>





	there's a crack in everything (that's how the light gets in)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to December21st for betaing. That being said, she's only seen the first five eps so any canon errors are necessarily my own.
> 
> I really, really hate time travel. Please excuse anything that doesn't make sense, because the more I think about cause and effect, the more circular it becomes and the bigger my headache gets. :) I tried! *g*
> 
> I have not seen any episodes of Primeval, so this will probably contradict its canon when it comes to timeline changes and temporal junctions and everything else that's related. Go with it. :)
> 
> Enjoy!

"What happened with Ange?" 

It's something she's been wondering for days now, and Dylan works up the nerve to ask late one night as they eat Italian (not Chinese; it's been weeks since she's seen him eat Chinese) up in his office. 

There's a tiny pause as he reaches for his drink, and for a second she thinks he won't answer. It's on the tip of her tongue to tell him never mind, it's none of her business, but he sits back in his seat and taps his fork against the edge of the takeout container before telling her, his eyes fixed somewhere near her feet, "She broke it off."

"Why?" Dylan blurts before she can help herself, and wishes she could take it back. It probably _isn't_ any of her business, but she pushed him toward Ange in the first place and now she feels responsible.

"I said some things," he admits, still staring at the floor, "when I was hallucinating. She didn't take it very well."

"You tell her something you shouldn't have?"

Now his gaze flicks up, locking on to hers. His voice is soft, broken, when he says, "I thought she was Brooke."

***

Things are just slightly off the next week. Ange is gone and Mac isn't coming in and Evan has moments where he zones right out. He's thankfully focussed when they're out in the field so she never has to worry about him having her back, but in the office there are days when Dylan thinks that she and Toby are the only normal ones left in the building.

Then somehow Ange is working for the military and Toby is stung by a prehistoric scorpion and Evan has the chance to save his wife, even though he understands why he _can't_. By the time they get the _Albertosaurus_ back where it's supposed to be Dylan is exhausted, but just as she thinks that maybe they can start wrapping up the day, the anomalies start disappearing, popping out of existence one by one.

"We changed something," Evan breathes, sounding rattled, and she whips her head around to look at him. They turn and sprint for the way home.

***

They make it, barely.

Something trips them up on the way through and they land, hard, smashing the handheld anomaly detector along the way. But they make it, and there's a second or two of exhilarated relief until it becomes obvious that, in spite of what they've already been through today, their problems are just beginning.

Britannia Mines is quiet, abandoned, exactly as it was when they first arrived that morning; not a person in sight. Dylan would be okay with that if not for the fact that when they left just minutes ago, there was a full military team, piles of equipment, and a partially destroyed gas station that's now back in one piece.

"Well," Dylan starts, not sure what to say, but Evan mutters _shit_ and she figures that pretty much sums everything up nicely.

***

They start walking back toward the city, trying to figure out what went wrong and how things might have changed as a result, but it's all guesswork. The _Albertosaurus_ wasn't supposed to be killed. Mac didn't arrive in time to save Evan six years ago. The scorpion whose tail they cut off was supposed to play a part in some future event they aren't even aware of. Connor Temple's interaction with them and the military somehow set things in motion that were never supposed to happen. That's just off the tops of their heads; there are just too many variables, too many things they don't know or understand, to predict how things might be now and why.

They manage to flag down a couple of twenty-year-old kids in a passing car, and Dylan finds it laughably easy to flirt with the boys enough to score them a ride back. She and Evan have to curb their conversation about anomalies and time travel paradoxes and make small talk instead, and the entire time all she wants to do is reach across the back seat and take Evan's hand, because she's pretty sure it's all about to go straight to hell.

***

Cross Photonics is still Cross Photonics.

They stand outside the building, staring at the entrance. "This is a good thing, right?" Dylan says, but she sounds dubious even to herself.

Evan opens and closes his mouth a few times before shaking his head. "I have no idea."

They stare a little longer before he takes a deep breath, like he's fortifying himself. "Let's do it," he says, and Dylan follows him in.

***

They recognize Evan.

They don't recognize Dylan.

***

They let her in because Evan vouches for her and they aren't about to argue with the boss, and they go straight to Special Projects.

The problem with that is that Special Projects doesn't seem to exist. Not in the way they're used to, anyway.

The space is still there, still designated as Special Projects and requires authorization to enter, but the team hard at work in the restricted area is dedicated strictly to science. Dylan has no idea _what_ , exactly, they're doing, but she's certain it has nothing to do with tracking anomalies or hunting down time-travelling dinosaurs.

Evan swears under his breath and takes off for the executive floor of Cross Photonics, taking the stairs three at a time and forcing Dylan to a near-run if she wants to keep up. He comes to a stop just as abruptly and she veers around him to avoid crashing into him. Ahead of them is Ange's office. In this new timeline they've found themselves in, it _is_ still Ange's office, because Dylan can see the CFO, talking to a dark-haired woman.

Dylan glances back at Evan, and he looks like he's seen a ghost. "What's wrong?" she demands, but there's a chill snaking down her spine that tells her she already knows.

She turns back to Ange's office, the other woman in the room turning to face them at the same time, and Dylan recognizes her from the photo on Evan's desk even as he chokes out her name.

" _Brooke_."

***

There's half an hour of confusion and misunderstandings and awkward questions, but they get most of the story figured out.

Six years earlier, Evan took a detour to take a look at the property. He and Brooke stumbled across an _Albertosaurus_. In this timeline, though, Brooke managed to duck out of the way of the predator, and Mac still came through in time to save Evan. The dinosaur went through the anomaly, which closed almost immediately after. Evan still bought the property, but without the personal drive to get closure for the death of his wife, without the handheld tracker the original Mac had dropped in the first timeline to give him a place to start, Cross Photonics was just a research company and not a front for dinosaur hunting. 

Mac still died. His official cause of death was attributed to a bear attack; without any identification, he was buried in a public plot as a John Doe.

None of them has ever heard of Dylan. 

They can't see how keeping their knowledge secret can help, so Dylan and Evan share their version of events, though without even discussing it they leave out Brooke's death. The others look a little disbelieving at first, but Brooke, at least, has seen a dinosaur herself, and Ange has been friends with them both for a long time, so it takes a relatively short time to convince them that it's true.

Evan can't seem to stop staring at his wife. Ange notices too, and she's the one who pulls Dylan aside. "Come on," she says. "Let's find out about you."

All it takes is a Google search. According to newspaper articles and the official website, this Dylan Weir is still a member of Predator Control, still partnered with Tony Drake. As shaken as she is by everything that's happened today, Dylan still finds a few seconds to be glad about the fact that her old partner's still alive.

***

There's a good chance she has the same apartment, but Dylan doesn't want to go home. She's been hit by enough today; she doesn't think she can take going home just to find everything different from what she expects.

Evan lets her stay at Cross Photonics, and she crashes on the couch Toby uses when she spends the night at the lab. It's a restless night, full of more tossing and turning than actual sleep, and when she does manage to doze off her dreams are full of dinosaurs and Mac. In the morning, she doesn't feel any more rested.

Ange arrives, then Evan and Brooke. They decide to bring Toby in on the whole situation and spend the first hour sharing the details around her excited outbursts. 

Then, they get down to work.

***

It takes a little over a week for them to accept that there isn't anything they can do.

As far as they can tell, there are no anomalies. No dinosaurs. With the handheld tracker smashed to pieces, they have no way of detecting anomalies even if they appeared.

"I could fix it," Toby says. "It would just take a while."

"How long?" Dylan wants to know.

Toby squirms a little. "Months? At least."

The stress has been building and building, and this is just the final piece of information she can't handle right now. "I need some air," she says to the room at large, and leaves before anyone can respond.

She walks the hallways of Cross Photonics, a common enough presence over the past week that most people have stopped giving her questioning looks. She can't even focus at first, just paces up one corridor and down another, trying to sort everything out in her head.

"Hey."

She turns a corner to find Evan waiting for her. "Hey," she says back, and though she doesn't stop moving she slows down enough for him to join her.

They walk in silence for a while, in sync but carefully not looking at each other. "It might not be so bad," he says eventually, rubbing at the back of his neck like he knows she doesn't want to hear it.

She falters, thrown by his words, but really, she shouldn't be. He has Brooke back, which is everything he's wanted for six years, and so why wouldn't he be okay with keeping things the way they are now?

"Dylan," he says, and this time he stops, fingers curling around her arm to bring her to a stop as well. "I know what you're thinking, but this isn't just about Brooke. Drake's alive too. So are all those people who were killed by dinosaurs in our timeline. Ange is happier because she can run the company and not have to fund a secret project on the side. Is there really a downside to this?"

 _What about me?_ she wants to say. _Do I look happy to you?_ But that's selfish, pitting her wishes against all the lives that have been saved in this altered timeline. She loved working for Predator Control before she got drawn into this life; even knowing what she's missing now, she thinks she could make a life for herself working there again, thinks she could be happy there. It wasn't that long ago she considered quitting this job, after all.

Still, it doesn't sit right with her. "This isn't the way it's supposed to be," she argues instead. "We've changed the past. We don't have the right to mess with people's lives that way."

"How do you know? Maybe this _is_ how it's supposed to be. Maybe everything has happened exactly this way because we were _meant_ to change the past six years and put everything right." She remembers his words from a week ago when she'd pointed out they might not have ever met, _maybe it would be better that way_ , and shakes off the feeling of hurt. He takes a step closer. "You can't tell me that dinosaurs travelling through time to kill people in the twenty-first century is natural, Dylan. Maybe we've just put everything back the way it was always supposed to be."

He makes sense, she has to admit. She's not sure she agrees with him, but it's more a gut feeling than anything logical and that's not going to hold up under scrutiny. _This doesn't feel right_ isn't going convince him to her point of view, not even remotely.

In the end, though, what does it even matter?

"It's a moot point anyway," she mutters, knowing she sounds like a sullen teenager and not able to help it. "We can't change anything if there are no anomalies to let us go back in time in the first place." Even if there were, by the time he and Toby could cobble together a device to let them track one down, they would have already created enough changes in this new time that she's not sure they would have the right to change that history, either.

It's possible she's over-estimating her own role in the universe, but, god, does it ever feel like the weight of the world is resting on her shoulders right now.

***

She ends up going back to work at Predator Control. They don't know Ken Leeds here, but Ange has enough connections to swing her two weeks off under the guise of medical leave. Any longer than that, though, is going to raise questions, so it's either go back to work or quit.

Without Evan's side job, there's nothing else for her to do, so she goes back.

It takes a distressingly short amount of time for her life to fall back into its old routine, resuming itself like the past four months had never happened. It starts to feel surreal, the idea that she used to hunt real live dinosaurs, and if Evan weren't making an effort to keep in touch she would have started to think the whole thing had been a dream.

He does keep in touch, though, making sure to call at least once a week, or text her something completely random, or even, once or twice, meet her for dinner. It surprises her, a little, that their rapport doesn't fall by the wayside without the job to keep them connected, but she can't deny that she's pleased that they can keep up their friendship even without having dinosaurs in common.

***

It's three months before she starts to realize that something is wrong.

There's an attack on the outskirts of the city, and Predator Control is called in to identify the animal and track it down. That's not so unusual, but when they get a look at the body, the tooth and claw marks are all too familiar in a way they really, really shouldn't be. Not anymore.

Drake IDs the attacker as a brown bear before she can decide what to do, and for a moment all Dylan can do is gape at him because even if dinosaurs aren't anywhere on Drake's radar, the injury pattern _clearly_ isn't that of a brown bear.

When it's just the two of them again she challenges him on his identification, because while she can't say, _You know, this looks more like an_ Allosaurus _to me_ she can at least try to understand how he could make such a blatant error.

"The tooth marks are too deep, the claws too wide," she points out. "And brown bears crack open bones to get to the marrow; they don't chew through them."

He just looks at her and asks, "What else could it be?" without any sort of explanation or justification, dismissing her questions in a way Drake never has, and Dylan knows then and there that something is _wrong_.

***

She starts investigating. She goes through old newspaper articles about animal attacks in the Vancouver area and then compares the details to the official reports. Some of them are legitimate attacks, but some – too many – don't quite add up. Pictures of wounds that don't match the animal to which they've been attributed, autopsy reports with injury descriptions that contradict the final cause of death... somebody's hiding something, and Dylan's afraid she knows exactly what it is.

When she thinks she has enough evidence, she goes to Evan. He sits quietly as she explains her suspicions, only interrupting to ask clarifying questions, and when she's done he closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose, and mutters, "Fuck."

"Yeah," she says tiredly, gathering together her pages. "That's pretty much what I thought."

***

With Evan's resources, they dig deeper. The military is involved, they decide, though they can't tell whether Ken Leeds is tied up in this or not; even if they knew, Dylan doesn't trust him anyway, so that's not much help. Drake seems to be working for the Army in much the same way he used to work for Evan; it's the only reason why she can figure he'd make so many obvious identification errors in his official reports over the past several years.

"Look at these reports," Evan says late one night, running a frustrated hand through his hair as he paces the perimeter of the office. "There are more than twice as many deaths here as there were in the original timeline. How is that possible? How could something like this be kept a secret?"

Dylan sits quietly, watching him, remembering his argument that the changed timeline was for the better because of all the lives that had been saved. It'd be easy to see the guilt he feels even if she didn't know him as well as she does.

"The military's pretty good at covering things up," she points out, though he already knows this. "As for the deaths, well...." She hesitates, not sure if her words will help or heap on more guilt, irrational as it is. "We put a lot of dinosaurs back in their natural habitat, Evan. It makes sense that we managed to save some lives along the way by getting them back home before they could hurt even more people."

He paces a minute more before dropping down next to her. "I don't know what to do," he admits, voice low, tipping his head to rest against the back of the couch.

Dylan aches for him. The decision's not such a hard one, for her; this life's pretty good, she has to admit, but she misses her old one and she's thought from the beginning that they shouldn't be here anyway. And she might have lost Drake the first time around, but Evan lost his wife plus two of his own employees and, in a way, Ange as well. He has a hell of a lot more to lose if they try to put everything back the way it was.

She really doesn't envy him.

Without an answer to give, Dylan loops her arm through Evan's and leans into him, letting her cheek come to rest against his shoulder. He tips his head so that his lips are pressed to her hair, reaching over to squeeze her leg in thanks or acknowledgement or support, and they sit there without speaking for a long, long time.

***

"We have to try," Evan decides, and with that, they start to plan.

There's no way they can pull this off without Toby or Ange, and it takes half a day to explain everything and to convince them that fixing the past has to be done. Evan and Toby start on the broken detector, leaving Dylan and Ange to make a plan.

***

She has to keep going in to work, because they don't know how long it will take to fix the tracker or find the right anomaly – if they can even do either of those things – and she can't just quit in case they end up failing. The others all work at Cross Photonics, making it easier, and she gets more and more worn out keeping up the pretense with Drake and wondering what's going on while she's out on a job with Predator Control.

The plan is vague, because there's too much they just don't know. A lot depends on blind luck, like finding an anomaly that will take them back to the temporal junction; from there, they have to find the anomaly that will lead them back to the _Albertosaurus_ and the attack that started it all. The odds of both of these things happening, Dylan thinks in her darker moments, probably involve numbers she doesn't even know how to pronounce. 

They can take supplies, though. So she and Ange start gathering together what they can: food, water, shelter, clothing, stun weapons. If there's enough warning, they'll be able to take it all with them.

Dylan has to admit, it'll be nice to be somewhat prepared for once.

***

She joins them at Cross Photonics after work, even after she and Ange have done everything they can do, because she needs to know what's going on. The first week, she spends so many nights on the couch upstairs that Evan gets her her own pillow and blanket.

He isn't doing any better. Dylan at least manages to sleep a few hours a night, but Evan doesn't seem to be sleeping at all. When she wakes in the middle of the night, he's still down in the lab, working on the handheld anomaly detector. The rest of them take turns convincing him he needs rest, but he only ever listens if he's too tired to see straight.

Brooke has a little more success; sometimes she manages to talk him into going home, and they don't see him back in the lab for a good eight hours or more. If she were in Evan's position, knowing that if she succeeded it would mean the death of someone she loved, Dylan doesn't know if she'd spend as much time as possible with them or start pulling away now.

In the end, she decides she's just glad it's a decision she doesn't have to make.

***

Two and a half months later, she's woken at who-knows-what time by Toby's whoop.

"We've got it!" she shouts as Dylan pokes her head over the railing to see what's going on. "We did it! It's working!"

Dylan shifts her gaze to Evan, who looks more devastated than elated, and doesn't know how to feel.

***

Tracker fixed, they start chasing anomalies.

Finding anomalies also means finding dinosaurs, as well as avoiding the Army as they try to get their prehistoric visitors back to where they belong. Thankfully, it doesn't seem that the military has managed to develop a detector of its own, so for the most part Project Magnet's only involved in the more public incursions, making it easier for the rest of them.

It takes six weeks to find an anomaly that leads to the temporal junction. In all honesty, Dylan was expecting it to take much, much longer.

Toby's tweaked the timer so that it works even with the background readings of all the other anomalies in the junction, and they've got enough time to retrieve the supplies packed up and ready to go at Cross Photonics. They take everything through and pile it up on the other side, and come back one last time to say goodbye.

It's the strangest farewell Dylan's ever experienced.

She'll see Ange and Toby again, if everything goes right, but these women are slightly different than the ones she left behind; Ange, at least, seems less stressed than the woman she knows from the original timeline. Once they told her about dinosaurs, Toby's seemed exactly the same. 

It's a little different with Brooke. Dylan likes her well enough, but between her job with Predator Control and all the hours put into planning and then tracking down the anomalies, they've never really spent much time together. If things were different, she thinks they could have been friends.

Of course, if things were different, they'd probably never have met.

Ange and Toby move away to give Evan and Brooke some privacy. Dylan does, too, but she can't help watching, knowing how much this must be tearing him apart. They never did tell anyone here that Brooke died in their timeline, though she thinks Ange and maybe even Brooke herself might have suspected something in the desperate way he'd kept her in arm's reach at the beginning of all this. To the best of Dylan's knowledge, though, Brooke only knows that they have to leave, and that if they do what they set out to do, they'll fix whatever went wrong and re-write the last six and a half years and no one else will ever know the difference. 

More people will live, in the final count, but Brooke won't be one of them.

Dylan glances down at the timer to find they have less than two minutes until the anomaly closes. "Evan," she murmurs, moving closer to the couple who are wrapped in a hug. She swipes at her eyes and swears to herself that she _will not cry_. "Evan, if we're going to do this, we've gotta go."

Neither of them moves for another few seconds, but then Evan pulls back. His eyes are red and glassy but he's not crying, not quite. Dylan figures it won't be long before he breaks, though. "Forty-three seconds," she prompts him gently, and turns to say one final farewell to the people who helped get them this far. "See you soon," she jokes weakly, and with a last look at Evan, steps through the anomaly.

There's an anxious moment or two where she wonders if he'll follow, but then he's here, staring at her with such an expression of anguish on his face that she thinks her heart will break. Then the anomaly shuts down behind him – no backing out now – and he doesn't even turn away before the tears start pouring down his face.

Dylan wraps her arms around him and doesn't say a word, just holds him as he cries.

***

It's hard to keep track of time here – at least time passes at the same rate on both sides of an anomaly, which makes it slightly less confusing – but Dylan figures they've been stuck in the temporal junction for a couple of months now. She never would have pegged time travelling or live dinosaurs as potentially boring, and it's _not_ , exactly, but after a while there's a sort of monotony to it. 

Mostly, it's in and then straight back out. If they show up in a desert or barren land or there are dinosaurs within sight, they know it's not the anomaly they're looking for. Once, they ended up either in the ice age or the worst blizzard British Columbia's seen in a century; either way, they didn't stick around for long.

A lot of the time they walk into a forest. Sometimes there are plants or trees Dylan doesn't recognize or knows shouldn't be there, and that's enough of an indication to know it's the wrong time. Other times, though, a forest is a forest is a forest, and they have to do some recon to figure out where they might be. The real goal is the anomaly they stumbled into all those months ago, the one the _Albertosaurus_ used to come through to kill Brooke and Mac and almost kill Evan, but they've agreed that the odds of coming across that exact one are low and they're willing to settle for "good enough" if they think they can make the changes that need to be made in a slightly earlier time.

Once in a while, they come out in a populated area. They've been lucky so far that no one's seen them or, worse, followed them back through. Dylan isn't sure what they'd do if that happened.

Twice, they're pretty certain they visit the future. 

They don't talk about that.

***

She and Evan knew each other about ten months before they ended up here, but it's these months they've spent checking anomaly after anomaly that they really get to know each other. It's kind of unavoidable, given that they don't have anyone else to talk to.

He's quiet the first weeks, grieving Brooke, and Dylan's torn between giving him space and making sure he doesn't spend all his time mourning. The first day or so is spent setting up a base camp with the supplies they brought with them so he can't withdraw completely, and they spend another few days mapping out the location of all the anomalies within a half-kilometer radius of their camp. This, it turns out, is a very good call, because anomalies come and go without any warning.

He doesn't stray very far from her here, because they never know what might come through, so she can at least keep an eye on him even when he wants to be alone. She finds a balance between letting him get lost in his own head and making sure he doesn't stay lost, and eventually, he starts acting like himself again.

They investigate anomalies during the day, and eat around the fire at night, and take turns sleeping so that someone's always on watch for giant lizards or flesh-eating beetles or whatever else might wander through to the junction and find them. Every so often they take a day off to explore the area and recharge; searching through all the different anomalies, they discover quickly enough, is exhausting.

It's around the campfire or during their walks around the junction that they talk. Evan starts sharing stories about Brooke, about their lives before she died, and other stories about his childhood and family. She tells him about her sister and more about growing up on a farm and about the boyfriend whose proposal she almost accepted three years ago. 

She complains about all his bad habits, and he grumbles about hers, and they drive each other crazy half the time but somehow Dylan can't imagine being trapped here with anyone but him.

***

"Do you ever wonder," she says one evening as they're eating, "what happens to us if we do manage to fix the timeline?"

"What do you mean?" he asks, but she gets the sense he just wants to hear her thoughts before he shares his own.

She sets down her plate and leans forward. "Say we manage to find the right anomaly at the right time. Shouldn't the you and me from that time be there? And if we're all in the junction when something changes, we're unaffected, right? So there'd be two of you, and two of me."

Evan nods slowly. "According to some theories on time travel, two versions of the same person can't exist in the same time. If that's true, and we're the odd ones out because we're from a timeline that won't exist anymore, then...." He shrugs as he trails off. "I don't know."

"So, what? We just cease to exist?"

He repeats, "I don't know," and she feels a little sick to her stomach.

"Well," she muses aloud after a long moment of silence, "I suppose there are worse ways to go than just blinking out of existence."

"Way to be positive," he says, and they move on to a less depressing topic.

***

They investigate an anomaly that's popped up sometime in the three days since they last checked the shore of the small lake, and only two steps in Dylan knows this is the one.

She's been here only a handful of times, most recently a good six months ago, but there's no mistaking the room in the building of what came to be Cross Photonics. Even if she somehow failed to recognize the space, Evan's faltering steps and the expression on his face would be enough to clue her in.

He pauses and looks at her, and for a moment she's not sure he can do this. But he straightens, and turns toward the door, and she follows him silently to the punch-clock so they can check the date.

"Tomorrow," he says, staring at the date, and Dylan lets out the breath she was holding. "It's supposed to happen tomorrow."

He puts the card on top of the clock and turns away, moving stiffly back toward the room where he lost his wife and, if not for Mac, would have died himself. Still not knowing what to say, she falls into step beside him until they pass back through to the junction. "Evan," she says, looking up at him. "Are you okay?"

His eyes are darting all around, seeming to look at everything but her. "Ask me later," he says finally, and when he heads in the opposite direction from their camp she lets him go.

***

He comes back to camp just as dusk is settling in. Dylan's stoking the fire, readying it for the night ahead. She sets him to work getting the food prepared, and neither of them talks about tomorrow.

***

They set up close enough to see both of the anomalies they need but where they won't get in the way. 

Fifteen minutes before the Crosses' arrival, twenty-three minutes before Brooke's death, Dylan puts her hand on Evan's shoulder and squeezes.

***

After hours of waiting, everything happens at once. Another Dylan and Evan arrive with Mac, the three of them shepherding the _Albertosaurus_ through the anomaly that leads to six years ago. There's confusion and hurried explanations and a fair bit of arguing, but they manage to talk their doubles into going back through to their own time and let Mac go ahead and save Evan. When everything's over Brooke is dead, as is Mac, and everything is re-set to the way it was before.

She and Evan head through the anomaly together before the _Albertosaurus_ can come back to the junction, and when they appear on the other side, there's only one of her and one of him. She _feels_ the same, still remembers everything that happened in the alternate timeline, and wonders if the two other versions disappeared or if they just... integrated, somehow.

But this side of the anomaly, the re-set timeline, looks something like a war zone, so she saves her theories for later.

She and Evan end up separating as they pitch in to help clean up the mess. After they manage to sort everything out, they find a quiet spot to sit together and catch their breath. Evan doesn't say a word, but as dusk sets in he grabs her hand and doesn't let go.

***

It's a whole different kind of readjustment when they get back. Everything is the way it was when they left, but Mac is still gone and she and Evan spent months alone. The two of them have had close to a year to accept Mac's death but for Toby and Ange the pain is new. There's a hole at Cross Photonics that Dylan isn't sure will ever be filled.

Being around other people is strange. It takes her a surprising amount of time just to get used to the near-constant noise of the city again. 

It's slow going, but they all learn to move on. Late one night, when it's just her and Evan at the office, she asks the same question she asked back when they first knew they were about to make it home. "Are you okay?"

He's a long time answering, but this time he doesn't walk away. "Yeah," he murmurs. "Yeah, I think I am." He looks up at her. "I got to say goodbye this time. I think that helped."

She reaches over to take his hand, noting absently that this whole touching thing is becoming a habit. "I'm glad."

He gives her a sad sort of smile, linking his fingers with hers. 

They don't stay much longer. When they leave, he walks her to her car.

***

There's talk about stopping, about packing up Special Projects and anything to do with dinosaurs or anomalies, but when all is said and done they're saving lives, and neither Dylan nor Evan trusts the military to do it right.

Ange opts to continue working for Hall and Project Magnet, and with her as intermediary the two sides come to an uneasy truce. Neither side wants to admit it, but they need each other to prevent as many deaths as possible. They manage to form a working relationship, strained as it is.

It doesn't stop anyone from keeping secrets from the other side, but they manage to fumble through dinosaur retrievals just the same.

***

It feels wrong to celebrate the one-year anniversary of Dylan joining the team, seeing how it coincides so closely with Drake's death, but Evan brings in pizza and beer and the two of them end up staying much later than anyone else. 

"Hell of a year, huh?" Evan says as they start piling up the boxes and collecting the bottles.

"Understatement of the decade," she points out, tossing the napkins in the trash, then arches an eyebrow at him. "Have you considered that our year was almost twice as long as anyone else's?" It's been a calendar year since she first met Evan, but the seven months or so they lived in the altered timeline were erased for everyone else when they re-set the past. They can't agree on how to count the months in the junction.

"That explains why I feel so old."

"Explains why you look it, too." She grins at his indignant _Hey!_ and ducks the crumpled-up takeout menu he tosses in her direction. A glance at the clock shows her exactly how late it is and she figures it's time to leave if she's going to get any sleep tonight. "Well, boss, unless you're giving me tomorrow off, I think it's time for me to head home."

"Oh, did I forget to mention the six a.m. meeting?" 

Dylan blames her fatigue for prompting her to stick her tongue out at him in response, but it's worth it to hear him laugh. They're all well on their way to healing, but laughter is something that's still too rare.

He catches up to her at the top of the stairs, his hand on her elbow making her pause. "Are you okay to drive?" he asks, serious again.

"Yeah," she assures him. "My last beer was almost two hours ago and I'm not really _that_ tired."

"Good," he says, "that's good." He looks almost nervous for some reason, but before she can ask what's going on Evan blurts out, "I want to ask you something."

"Sure," she says, confused.

He keeps looking at her and then away, like he can't hold her gaze, and now she's moving from confusion to worry. "Evan?"

He takes a breath. "Do you... I mean, I want...." He makes a frustrated noise, and then without any sort of warning he takes a step closer, cups her face in both hands, and kisses her.

Dylan sucks in a startled breath and then she's kissing him back, one hand curling around the back of his neck, the other grasping his arm, holding him close even as he pulls his lips from hers.

" _Oh_ ," she breathes, opening her eyes – when had she closed them? – to find that he looks almost as surprised as she feels. The kiss wasn't all that long but her heart is absolutely _pounding_ and neither of them is breathing very steadily.

Evan's staring at her, wide-eyed, palms still against her cheeks, and when he licks his lips and opens his mouth to speak Dylan decides she's not ready for any kind of deep conversation about... whatever this is. "You were kidding about the six a.m. meeting, right?" she asks, to cut him off.

"Of course," he says, looking bewildered.

"Good." And she leans back in to him, pleased when he meets her halfway.

***

The past year has been unbelievable in ways Dylan couldn't have ever predicted. Somehow, she's certain that the next one will be at least as incredible – just, perhaps, in an entirely different way.

_\--end--_


End file.
